You've been making art for over 70 years; what does it feel like, looking again at your early work? The funny thing about looking back is that it's like looking at an enormous self-portrait done in stages, but one that I'm not really in control of. I look back at my early work and I wonder if I even did some of it, not because I don't like it but because it feels very distant. There's a great quote from Picasso: "What one does is what counts and not what one had the intention of doing."

People have called you a political artist. Is that fair? I think it's a mistake for painters or poets to get too involved in politics, any more than it makes sense for them to get swept up in being fashionable.

But you were fashionable too, weren't you? Oh yes, terribly fashionable at one stage. I loved it, because I was young and cocky and good and felt I deserved all that. Then it all went away. You can't work too closely to fame. The great thing about being a painter is that you don't have to appear in person. I have no desire whatsoever to become more famous.

During the pop art years you had quite a reputation as an innovator. It's funny with pop art: in retrospect its inventions look easy. But we were all trying out new things all the time, things that have since become overtaken by commercial art. I remember a serious discussion at the Royal Academy once in the late 50s, about whether fine art and pop art could ever get along. A lot of people felt that it couldn't.

So craft skills are still important to you? The handmade element of what you do? I trained as a carpenter originally, just like De Kooning trained as a painter and decorator. I like using my hands, I trust them. In some ways I think I'm a product of the industrial revolution!

Are things better or worse for artists these days? I'm not sure; I don't believe in progress. There are definitely more galleries, and it's easier for young artists to exhibit. When I was at art school we did the degree shows and nothing was for sale - it was all paintings in a big pile. These days it's much more professional. But there's more pressure; they all want to do this thing called "becoming an artist", the poor dears. That's life.

What advice would you give to a young artist? I remember some of my students saying how much they wanted to paint like Francis Bacon. I said: grow up in Ireland, live in London, get beaten up by sailors, then you might paint like him. In art you're stuck with your own personality. Who you are is also your fate.

- Joe Tilson is on at the Waddington Galleries, London, until April 21